Billy Cowherâ€™s playoff history

January 04, 2006 by Still Mill

Billy Cowher�s playoff history:

Billy Cowher�s playoff history

Intro:� Because the memory of the typical Pittsburgh sports fan lasts only about, oh, 5
months, it's always prudent to reinforce the real facts of history.� As we have long seen, both in sports and in
international relations, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to
repeat the same failure.� That said,
herewith is the compilation of Billy Cowher's
illustrious playoff history.� (See associated
article for a condensed tabular version of the Cowher playoff history.)

Jan. �93 - Despite securing the top seed and
home field advantage throughout the playoffs, Cowher�s
team gets thoroughly whipped and embarrassed by the Bills, 24-3.

Jan. �94 - The Stillers visited a very
ordinary Chiefs team, and lost a very winnable game because of two chronic
problems: dropped passes, including one by Jeff Graham that could have sealed
the game, and special teams fiasco caused by a blocked punt. On the game-tying
do or die TD by Kansas City,
the Stillers played vanilla, rushing just 4 men and allowing Joe Montana 7
seconds to scan the entire field.

Jan. �95 - Cowher finally got his first
playoff win by beating Cleveland, a team they�d already waltzed through twice
during the regular season. Cowher then allowed his players to conduct Super
Bowl video practice in the week leading up to the AFC title game in Pittsburgh. As a 10-point
favorite over the weak SD Chargers, the Stillers lost in one of the most
shameful, pitiful playoff losses in franchise history, to one of the weakest
teams to ever make it to the Super Bowl.

Jan. �96 - The Stillers easily disposed of
an aging, decrepit Bills team in their first game, 40-21.

���� Then, thanks to a KC loss, the Stillers
managed to get another home-field AFC title game, this time against a very weak,
ordinary Colts team that was ravaged by injury. Not only was star RB Marshall
Faulk out, but backup Zack Crockett was also hobbled
from the KC game, meaning the running chores belonged to 3rd stringer Lamont
Warren. Despite overwhelming talent at virtually every position on the football
field, the Stillers were behind late in the game, and had CB Willie Williams
not abandoned his assignment and chased down Warren from behind on a late 3rd & 1, the
Colts would have salted away nearly all of the scant remaining time. O�Donell then hit Hastings
on a huge 4th and 3, and with less than a minute left, Bam crashed in for the
winning score. Still, the Colts came back against a softee
defense, and had a legit shot at a Hail Mary that was just barely incomplete in
the EZ. In a sheer fit of luck and fortune, the Stillers avoided what would
have been their most shameful playoff loss ever, even worse than the previous
year.

���� In the Super Bowl, Cowher arrived on gameday to a soggy, sloppy, soupy, mucky field in Tempe, and nevertheless
insisted on starting & playing scatbackErricPegram for the first
20-some minutes.� Pegram,
of course, was the same back that struggled mightily in the win on a soggy,
soupy Cleveland
field back in week 12, slipping and sliding as though he were wearing dress
shoes. Unfazed and undaunted, Cowshit insisted on
giving Pegram nearly exclusive playing time the first
20 mintues, and Pegram
responded with exactly zero productivity in the ground game.� On top of that, the entire Stiller
defense came out in a fog, totally befuddled and bewildered by the size and
brawn of the Cowboy offensive line. By the time Bam Morris finally entered the
game, and by the time the defense adjusted to the Cowboy offense, Dallas had a comfy lead
they should have never been given. Then, with Morris ripping through the soft
Cowpoke defense for nice chunks of yardage, with gobs of time left, Cowher
insisted on going pass-happy and putting O'Donnell into an undesirable
situation against a Dallas blitz and his favorite underneath receiver,
Hastings, hobbled by a busted shoulder.�

Jan. �97 - Stillers beat a woeful,
injury-ravaged Colts team 42-14. The Stillers then faced an ordinary New
England team in the fog of Boston,
and in a complete fog, got thoroughly whipped and embarrassed, 28-3. The
ineptitude of the team�s woeful preparation was never more evident than the
Stillers� first play from scrimmage -- a play that is practiced at least 15
times leading up to the game --- which was flagged for having 2 men in motion
at the same time.� This was as severe an assbeating as the NFL has ever seen in modern-day
playoffs.�

Jan. �98 - At home, the Stillers faced a
weak, injury-ravaged Patriots team, so beat up that not only was star RB Curtis
Martin on the shelf, but his backup was as well, meaning little-used 3rd string
RB Derrick Cullors had to start at RB. Despite the
home field advantage; the fact that they'd already played and narrowly beaten
the Pats 1 month prior; and superior talent all over the field, the only
TD the Stillers could muster all day was a fluke 40-yard scamper by Stewart,
made possible only because a NE LB pulled away in fear of a personal foul flag
as Stew was tight-roping the sideline. The Stillers eked out a totally
uninspiring win, 7-6, one of the sloppiest, ugliest, shit-laden playoff games
ever played by the black-jerseyed team in the history
of 3 Rivers Stadium.� After the game, all
Bilbo Cowher could say was,�
"I'm a
young coach, and I screwed up," the Pittsburgh Steelers coach said,
admitting his gamble on fourth-and-goal the 1-yard-line against New England Saturday was the wrong call. "I made a
mistake and they bailed me out."� Young
coach�.?� At the time, the man had been
the head coach for SIX regular seasons and FIVE playoff seasons.� Not young; just dumb as a rock.��

���� They then faced a Denver team that they�d beaten the month
prior, but in the rematch Coach Mike Shanahan�s adjustments allowed the Broncs to pull off yet another playoff upset of the
Stillers at home. While the ignorant place blame on Kordell
Stewarts 2 INTs (the 3rd was a useless Hail Mary as
time expired), it was Billy Cowher that once again put a player into an
entirely undesirable situation, especially on the 2nd INT, which was a play
from the Denver 3-yard line designed to hit a slant pattern amidst TRIPLE
coverage.� The coaching imbecility of
Bill Cowher was never more evident than the key 3rd & 7 play that occurred
right after the lengthy 2-minute warning timeout, in which Cowher�s
defense rushed only 4 men at Hall of Fame QB John Elway,
while covering the most likely pass recipient (Shannon Sharpe) with a LB (Gildon) who, at the time, almost never dropped into
coverage.� The Broncs
completed the pass and salted away the final 1:54, and went on to easily beat
an average Packers' team while Billy Cowher once again went into a late-January hibernation in order to avoid further
embarrassment.� (Sure enough, though,
less than 2 months later, Billy Cowhard -- still
under contract -- had the gaul
to demand a payraise, lest he was fleeing to Cleveland to coach a team
that, at that time, did not yet exist.)�

Jan.
'02:� Convincingly beat rival Baltimore, 27-10, in one of the very rare,
strong all-around efforts by a Cowher playoff team.�

���� The Stillers then hosted the NE Patriots
in the AFC Title game.� The Pats limped
into Heinz Field as 10-point underdogs, and most experts, sans this one,
assumed NE would be just happy to show up and go back to Foxboro without
getting embarrassed too badly.� The only
embarrassment was on the beet-red face of Coach Bilbo Cowher, whose team
slopped and slathered en route to a horrifying, despicable defeat, 24-17.� Special teams, a bugaboo since the 2001
opener in Jax, plagued the Stillers, allowing a punt
return for a TD and a blocked FG return for a TD (the latter essentially a
10-point swing, assuming the FG would have been good).� It wasn't only spec teams, of course.� The offense stunk, "led" by Big
Jerome Bettis, who was entirely unproductive and worthless.� The defense allowed Brady to pick them apart,
and even when Brady briefly left the game, the Softee
Defense allowed a cold Drew Bledsoe to complete a clutch 3rd & long, and
soon thereafter hit WR David Patten for a TD while Jason GilDong,
grossly overmatched in single coverage, literally quit on the play.� (Yet another example of
Billy Cowhair placing a player into a totally
undesirable situation.)�

Jan.
'03:� The Stillers faced the hapless Clev Browns in the first round, a team they'd already
beaten twice in the '02 season.� Clev came into the game with no running attack, an utterly
horrible offense line, and a mediocre stable of RBs
"led" by Will Green and Jamel White.� Nonetheless, facing this entirely
ONE-dimensional offense (Holcomb 429 yards passing in this game, Green 1.2 YPC
on 25 rushes), Cowhard's defense got shredded right
from the get-go, and the Browns were up 14-0 before most fans at the stadium
could buy a post-kickoff beer.� The
Browns built their lead to 24-7, and only by the good graces of Maddox and a
dropped 3rd down pass by Denny Northcutt did the Stillers eke out a 36-33
win.� The epitome of Cowher's
shoddy preparation was the 2nd play from scrimmage, in which his defense had to
call a timeout due to befuddled confusion because -- gasp -- the Browns went
no-huddle and used a 4-WR formation.� Had
the Stillers lost this game -- and they came within a gnat's eyelash of doing
so -- this might very well have been the most embarrassing loss in the entire
history of the Stillers franchise.��

���� The Stillers then traveled to Tennessee to face the
injury-ravaged Titans.� Going into the
game, all the so-called experts, sans this one, insisted the Titans would run
the ball and eschew the pass, because the Titans' WR corps was so battered and
ravaged.� Undaunted, the Titans took ballboys and added them onto their roster as WRs, and then proceeded to SHRED the Bily
Cowher Softee Defense to the tune of 338 passing
yards by Steve McNair.� Indeed, facing an
offense with a banged-up QB; the star RB who was lost of the game on the 1st
play of the 2d half; the primary and only backup RB shaken up badly; a starting
guard shaken up and removed from the game; and the opponent's best WR shelved
for the season a few weeks prior to the game, Billy Cowher, the supposed
defensive mastermind, was entirely unable to stop the Titans.����

���� The ignorant fan blames DeWayne Washington's roughing-the-kicker penalty as the
prime reason for the loss, but the reasons were many, many more than that --
especially a defense that couldn't stop a turtle with a sawed-off shotgun, and
the man responsible to oversee tactics and execution was the head coach, Bilbo
Cowher.�

Jan. 05:� The Stillers,
well rested after the bye week, faced a laughable, subpar
Jets team that not only was riddled by injury, but was coming off 2 grueling OT
games, including their�
wild-card game.� The
Stillers had just faced the Jets in early Dec, so any unfamiliarity they may
have had should have been removed weeks ago.�
The Jets were
missing star DE John Abraham, and star DE Shaun Eliis
missed a good chunk of the game.� In what
should have been a colossal Stillerassbeating of the Jets, the Stillers stumbled and slumbered
about, and basically lost the game late in the 4Q.� But NY kicker Dough Brien
missed 2 chippie FGs in the final 2:00 of the game,
which enabled the Stillers to survive into OT and win a squeaker by 3
points.� A team stink of enormous magnitude, highlighted by
yet another spec teams debacle in which 3 Stillers in punt coverage overran S.
Moss, who then ran 75-yards for the TD.

����������� The
Stillers then hosted the NE Patriots, a team they�d beaten soundly on
Halloween.� This team, the Pats came out
red hot, while Cowhard and his charges stood around
with thumb up ass and apple lodged in throat.�
This loss
featured all of the usual ingredients of a Cowher-led playoff failure: big
plays by the opponent; horrific turnovers; slop and slather; inability to rush
for yardage in crucial situations; poor intensity and execution.� The lowlight of Cowhard�d
overt stupidity was never more evident than early in the 4Q, with the Stillers
knocking on the door at the NE 2-yard line.�
The Stillers had stormed back in the 3Q from� a 24-3 halftime deficit to close the
gap to 14, and here they were, early in the 4Q, with 4th & goal at the NE
2-yard line.� Heinz Field was rocking at
an ear-splitting level, and all the momentum was behind the Stillers.� Instead of seizing the momentum and going for
the gusto, Cowhard trotted out his FG team to kick a
meaningless FG to make it an 11-point game. �The entire stadium literally let out a
collective gasp when Cowhard sent in the FG team, and
the team never recovered.� NE took the
ensuing KO and marched down for a score that essentially sealed the game.�

There you have it -- 12 years of Billy Cowher's
playoff futility and gross underachievement.�
Poor
preparation; loads of befuddlement; sloppy execution; meek, uninspired play;
pitiful special teams; stubborn refusal to adjust tactics and schemes; placing
players in entirely undesirable situations; and the never-ending failure to
rectify glaring problems -- all a trademark of a Billy Cowher playoff team, and
all comprising the reason why Cowher, along with his father, Marty Shittenheimer, are widely regarded as the worst playoff
coaches in modern NFL history. Fans saw what Marty Sr. did in last year�s
playoffs, choking away yet another home-field game with ultraconservatism in
the loss to the Jets.� Fans have also
seen the same from Billy Cowher and his play-not-to-lose playoff antics, which
were vividly evident early in the 4Q of the Pats loss.

In all, the
Stillers have never beaten a favored team in the playoffs, and have woefully
lost -- or won weakly despite playing like manure -- as a favorite several
times.� Almost
all of Cowhard�s very limited playoff success has
come against borderline playoff teams.�
In the Cowher Era postseason, the Stillers are:

�� 2-7
against division winners �� 6-2 against wild-card teams �� 1-9 against teams that went 11-5 or
better in the regular season �� 7-0 against teams that went 10-6 or
9-7 in the regular season

Under
Cowhard, the Steelers have NEVER won a playoff game
against a team that won its division and had a record of 11-5 or better.�� Thus, as can plainly be seen, Cowhard feasts on easy playoff cupcakes; any time he has to
face a legitimate opponent, he gets his ass handed back faster than a
liposuction patient.���

It's
no longer a coincidence that Cowher's team has stunk
and sputtered in the playoffs against vastly inferior teams -- it's a proven
trend, with 12 years of proof and evidence. No coach does less,
with more, in the playoffs than Little Billy Cowher.

(Still Mill
and Stillers.com -- the only nationally read coverage on the Pittsburgh
Stillers that has accurately predicted the how's and the why's of the past
4Stiller playoff losses�.)